Nationals, it's the one time of the year we all get together and go head to head. There are great winners(See Con Le and Michael D) and there are some pretty big losers (See whoever went 0-9). Your entire season rides on this one tournament. A year's worth of work is either won or lost at the top tables. This year was no different. Over 1000 players came from all ends of the country to compete for one thing, to become the 2010 Pokemon National Champion.
Around the first of June I had received an email from a very good Japanese friend of mine. He had mentioned the top decks in japan, and surprisingly had tyranitar on the list of top tiered decks. I didn't believe it, no way could it be true. Afterall, he look more like the green rangers megazord (from the original power rangers) than a pokemon. I kinda disregarded it, as I didn't like the donphan weakness, and the luxchomp game was hard. After the Dunnellon battle road we somewhat went back to it. Aaron Curry came over and I was just dominating his jumpluff and his sablelock list. We tested a bunch and continued to work on the list, making subtle changes to our lists..
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g101/TevanBP/ed30ceba.jpg
We arrived in Indianapolis on my birthday. I immediately met up with Aaron who was with Santiago Rodriguez. They tested with myself, my dad and Jim Roll for a few hours before we head off for the 2nd annual LaFonte softball game. Team BC was up on team DS for the longest time, before team DS made a roaring comeback to win 11-9, evening the yearly series to a 1-1 tie. I Sprained my ankle during the game after starting off 1-1 with an RBI, a run scored and a walk and was forced to leave the game.
We returned to our hotel room and began the grind of testing again. We had the ttar deck running and had put an ampharos in for the garchomp sp game. Donphan was the hardest game ever and it sucked hard. At around 330 AM we decided to go to bed. I'm hobbling around on one foot, and on my way to bed while crawling over a sleeping aaron and I land the wrong way on my foot and roll it over again. At this point it's the worst pain I've ever felt. I laid in bed for 2 hours before getting up and taking a cab to the hospital. They gave me some pain killers, crutches and a brace.
On thursday we moved over to our hotel, The Westin. Aaron comes over and he and I play test for about 4 hours. We take a break long enough to get registered for Nationals and grab some food, then we get back at it. The list hadn't changed all that much, it was just a matter of learning how to win. At this point, Jim Roll was going to play it as well, but he was having a hard time with the matchups. He did make one of the best suggestions for the deck, which ultimately led to us doing so well. He told us to add 4 rainbows and put in a machamp line in place of the amphy. So we did.
Friday, Day 1:
I arrive and take my seat. Deck list filled out. I can't believe I'm going to play tyranitar.... I'm so bad!
Round 1:
I opened decent vs any other deck.. But he's playing my autoloss round 1, Donphan... :frown: He went first when I realized I had an out to T1 him. All I needed was a collecter for unown q or a warp point and I win.. Communicate for Uxie, and whiff. I stuck in it, as his set up wasn't roaring but a few reversal flips later had me scooping my cards in a concession.
0-1
Round 2:
I open spiritomb which blocks his communication for a 6 card uxie. I get up a ttar and a queen and he never killed it.
1-1
Round 3:
I've got a pretty good hand his game. I finally got to go second, and he revealed his sableye. I knew sablelock was a good matchup for me, because not only did I invent the deck(See FL States 2010), I've tested this matchup like crazy. I expend all of my resources into getting machamp out and I roll. By the time he kills it i've only got 2 prizes left and I can tyranitar for them.
2-1. At this point I'm feeling pretty good. Hoping to run into some of my autowin Jumpluff game soon.
Round 4:
I didn't see any of his deck. He opened Combee and I t1d him with machamp.
3-1
Round 5:
Have you ever looked at your opening seven cards and knew that you weren't going to win? Well, that was this game. My opening hand was trash. Larvitar, 3 darks, Candy, DCE and BTS. I top decked tyranitar to avoid losing. He was playing gengar and had a ridiculous time KOing me. I kept top decking what I needed to stay in the game. At one point in the game I've got 3 prizes left and I take them all the next turn. Until he hits 2 super scoop ups to save both of his claydols. In the end, I only played 3 supporters the entire game and I won by one move, on a fainting spell whiff.
4-1.
Round 6:
He was playing luxchomp and didn't get much of a hand. I know he ran 3 uxie, which I found suprising. I got a t2 machamp and swept the board.
5-1
Round 7 vs Craig Abley:
Finally I play someone I know. He was playing one of the most unique decks I've seen. It was Garchomp with Palkia Lv X. The whole idea is to restructure claydol and judge and it obviously worked as he was 5-1. I opened spiritomb and not much else, but fortunately spiritomb was able to slow him down enough. He had a full bench, and 7 darkness howls won me the game.
6-1
I was pretty happy with my performance in day 1. Curry finished up 5-2 and we were ready for day 2. Aaron had contemplated dropping all afternoon, and I was frantically trying to get him to remain in the tournament. You don't come to nationals to drop, I firmly believe that.Eventually I got enough people to agree with me that we peer pressured him into staying in the tournament.
Day 2:
Round 8:
Well, I open my 7 cards and have pure trash. I manage to uxie for 5 cards twice in the first two turns and still didn't have a supporter. He playing playing Garchomp C with Donphan and I had a decent shot at winning. In the end I judge for 4 and need a nidoqueen for the game(To negate my darkness howl) I whiff the queen and end up losing on a flash bite.
6-2
Round 9:
I was shuffling my deck when my opponent came over and circled loss. Didn't even have to play.
7-2
Well, that was the end of swiss. Everything was going great, I had entered cut as the 24th seed. Turned my deck in and came back, only to find out that they had merged the pods, and I was now facing Aaron instead of a virtual auto win in Ian Ryayve(SP is sooo easy).
So, all of our testing came down to this. We both knew just about every match up there could be, but not once did we play mirror....
Top Cut vs Aaron Curry:
Whenever Aaron and I play each other we have to change our mindsets. It goes from being best friends, so fierce competitors.
Game 1:
I opened bland handed again. Took me two turns to find a supporter, thankfully I was able to spiritomb his claydol in the active spot. It was super close, and I lost 6-5.
Game 2:
Again no supporters, but I somehow managed to keep it close. It was just as lame as game 1 and I won 6-5...
Game 3 - Sudden Death:
Right after I had won game 2, they called time. Aaron and I both knew what this meant.. Nationals on a coin flip. Because of how this format is shaped, almost every deck is able to take a prize on turn 1, so going first is like a death sentence. I open baltoy and he opens machop. We flip the coin high in the air and I called heads. Once the coin came down on heads I knew my nats was over. I drew my card and passed while he showed me the t1 champ.
We shake hands and hug, then I revert from being his #1 opponent to his biggest cheerleader.
Aaron ended up being knocked out by a flukey loss in t32 (got t1d game 2 and whiffed energies 6 turns in a row game 3)
So in the end everything was great. I'm completely shocked that Sablelock won nationals. In the end it was his mewtwo counter than helped more than anything. As much as I wanted to play Sablelock, I didn't and still don't think it is the BDIF. I think that if Aaron and I weren't so unlucky we surely would have gone significantly further.
Props:
Curry
Spurlock
Lawman
Green Power Ranger
Spiritomb
four armed champion of death
Pooka
Lafonte
Slops:
Donphan
Mike Mattingly (YOU KNOW WHY) :lol:
Around the first of June I had received an email from a very good Japanese friend of mine. He had mentioned the top decks in japan, and surprisingly had tyranitar on the list of top tiered decks. I didn't believe it, no way could it be true. Afterall, he look more like the green rangers megazord (from the original power rangers) than a pokemon. I kinda disregarded it, as I didn't like the donphan weakness, and the luxchomp game was hard. After the Dunnellon battle road we somewhat went back to it. Aaron Curry came over and I was just dominating his jumpluff and his sablelock list. We tested a bunch and continued to work on the list, making subtle changes to our lists..
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g101/TevanBP/ed30ceba.jpg
We arrived in Indianapolis on my birthday. I immediately met up with Aaron who was with Santiago Rodriguez. They tested with myself, my dad and Jim Roll for a few hours before we head off for the 2nd annual LaFonte softball game. Team BC was up on team DS for the longest time, before team DS made a roaring comeback to win 11-9, evening the yearly series to a 1-1 tie. I Sprained my ankle during the game after starting off 1-1 with an RBI, a run scored and a walk and was forced to leave the game.
We returned to our hotel room and began the grind of testing again. We had the ttar deck running and had put an ampharos in for the garchomp sp game. Donphan was the hardest game ever and it sucked hard. At around 330 AM we decided to go to bed. I'm hobbling around on one foot, and on my way to bed while crawling over a sleeping aaron and I land the wrong way on my foot and roll it over again. At this point it's the worst pain I've ever felt. I laid in bed for 2 hours before getting up and taking a cab to the hospital. They gave me some pain killers, crutches and a brace.
On thursday we moved over to our hotel, The Westin. Aaron comes over and he and I play test for about 4 hours. We take a break long enough to get registered for Nationals and grab some food, then we get back at it. The list hadn't changed all that much, it was just a matter of learning how to win. At this point, Jim Roll was going to play it as well, but he was having a hard time with the matchups. He did make one of the best suggestions for the deck, which ultimately led to us doing so well. He told us to add 4 rainbows and put in a machamp line in place of the amphy. So we did.
Friday, Day 1:
I arrive and take my seat. Deck list filled out. I can't believe I'm going to play tyranitar.... I'm so bad!
Round 1:
I opened decent vs any other deck.. But he's playing my autoloss round 1, Donphan... :frown: He went first when I realized I had an out to T1 him. All I needed was a collecter for unown q or a warp point and I win.. Communicate for Uxie, and whiff. I stuck in it, as his set up wasn't roaring but a few reversal flips later had me scooping my cards in a concession.
0-1
Round 2:
I open spiritomb which blocks his communication for a 6 card uxie. I get up a ttar and a queen and he never killed it.
1-1
Round 3:
I've got a pretty good hand his game. I finally got to go second, and he revealed his sableye. I knew sablelock was a good matchup for me, because not only did I invent the deck(See FL States 2010), I've tested this matchup like crazy. I expend all of my resources into getting machamp out and I roll. By the time he kills it i've only got 2 prizes left and I can tyranitar for them.
2-1. At this point I'm feeling pretty good. Hoping to run into some of my autowin Jumpluff game soon.
Round 4:
I didn't see any of his deck. He opened Combee and I t1d him with machamp.
3-1
Round 5:
Have you ever looked at your opening seven cards and knew that you weren't going to win? Well, that was this game. My opening hand was trash. Larvitar, 3 darks, Candy, DCE and BTS. I top decked tyranitar to avoid losing. He was playing gengar and had a ridiculous time KOing me. I kept top decking what I needed to stay in the game. At one point in the game I've got 3 prizes left and I take them all the next turn. Until he hits 2 super scoop ups to save both of his claydols. In the end, I only played 3 supporters the entire game and I won by one move, on a fainting spell whiff.
4-1.
Round 6:
He was playing luxchomp and didn't get much of a hand. I know he ran 3 uxie, which I found suprising. I got a t2 machamp and swept the board.
5-1
Round 7 vs Craig Abley:
Finally I play someone I know. He was playing one of the most unique decks I've seen. It was Garchomp with Palkia Lv X. The whole idea is to restructure claydol and judge and it obviously worked as he was 5-1. I opened spiritomb and not much else, but fortunately spiritomb was able to slow him down enough. He had a full bench, and 7 darkness howls won me the game.
6-1
I was pretty happy with my performance in day 1. Curry finished up 5-2 and we were ready for day 2. Aaron had contemplated dropping all afternoon, and I was frantically trying to get him to remain in the tournament. You don't come to nationals to drop, I firmly believe that.Eventually I got enough people to agree with me that we peer pressured him into staying in the tournament.
Day 2:
Round 8:
Well, I open my 7 cards and have pure trash. I manage to uxie for 5 cards twice in the first two turns and still didn't have a supporter. He playing playing Garchomp C with Donphan and I had a decent shot at winning. In the end I judge for 4 and need a nidoqueen for the game(To negate my darkness howl) I whiff the queen and end up losing on a flash bite.
6-2
Round 9:
I was shuffling my deck when my opponent came over and circled loss. Didn't even have to play.
7-2
Well, that was the end of swiss. Everything was going great, I had entered cut as the 24th seed. Turned my deck in and came back, only to find out that they had merged the pods, and I was now facing Aaron instead of a virtual auto win in Ian Ryayve(SP is sooo easy).
So, all of our testing came down to this. We both knew just about every match up there could be, but not once did we play mirror....
Top Cut vs Aaron Curry:
Whenever Aaron and I play each other we have to change our mindsets. It goes from being best friends, so fierce competitors.
Game 1:
I opened bland handed again. Took me two turns to find a supporter, thankfully I was able to spiritomb his claydol in the active spot. It was super close, and I lost 6-5.
Game 2:
Again no supporters, but I somehow managed to keep it close. It was just as lame as game 1 and I won 6-5...
Game 3 - Sudden Death:
Right after I had won game 2, they called time. Aaron and I both knew what this meant.. Nationals on a coin flip. Because of how this format is shaped, almost every deck is able to take a prize on turn 1, so going first is like a death sentence. I open baltoy and he opens machop. We flip the coin high in the air and I called heads. Once the coin came down on heads I knew my nats was over. I drew my card and passed while he showed me the t1 champ.
We shake hands and hug, then I revert from being his #1 opponent to his biggest cheerleader.
Aaron ended up being knocked out by a flukey loss in t32 (got t1d game 2 and whiffed energies 6 turns in a row game 3)
So in the end everything was great. I'm completely shocked that Sablelock won nationals. In the end it was his mewtwo counter than helped more than anything. As much as I wanted to play Sablelock, I didn't and still don't think it is the BDIF. I think that if Aaron and I weren't so unlucky we surely would have gone significantly further.
Props:
Curry
Spurlock
Lawman
Green Power Ranger
Spiritomb
four armed champion of death
Pooka
Lafonte
Slops:
Donphan
Mike Mattingly (YOU KNOW WHY) :lol:
Last edited:
